When Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not meet the CEO Doug McMillon, CEO of the $486-billion Walmart Inc, and even Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu excused himself, a buzz around it was expected. Akhir kyon ( why) was what everyone was asking, but McMillon down played the whole thing.
But it may not be that simple. Some say the government may be trying to distance itself from endorsing the $16-billion deal that gave Walmart a 77 per cent stake in Flipkart. Is this because affiliates of the RSS such as Swadeshi Jagran Manch as well as retailers’ bodies such as The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) have already raised strong objections to the deal? Besides, remember who is BJP’s main vote bank, said a senior leader in the party.
Will this lead to problems in the deal closure? A smile is all you get from powers that be!
Elephantine memory
You must give it to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for its resolve to fight big data and the collusion among digital players through their self-learning algorithms.
It has not forgotten the quirky reply from airline companies when in February 2016 the infamous Jat quota stir sent air fares on the Chandigarh-Delhi sector through the roof. The cheapest available one-way ticket then was going for over ₹99,000! — more than double that of a Delhi-London return flight ticket that costs around ₹46,000.
When CCI asked the airline companies about this, the reply was “algorithms are driving it” and the airlines expressed helplessness about it. “They said we don’t know. We are not going to give up easily,” said CCI Chairman Devender Kumar Sikri at an event this past week.
Now, the CCI is toying with the idea of developing its own algorithms to unravel this, according to Sikri, who hopes Microsoft would it give a helping hand.
Clearly, self-learning algorithms are one of the biggest challenges that competition law enforcers are facing and the CCI, it appears, will take this head-on and undeterred.
Smart cookie
When it comes to managing the media, desperate times call for desperate measures. That’s what major public sector banks with stressed balance sheets are setting out to do. They have come up with the brilliant idea of not engaging with the media after the Board meeting for their annual/quarterly results. Just Informing the bourses will serve the purpose of avoiding inconvenient questions on NPAs. Oriental Bank of Commerce does it regularly and the latest to join this bandwagon is PNB, which has decided not to hold a press conference after its proposed Board meeting for annual results on May 15. It’s easier for PNB to keep the media at bay than bring back Nirav Modi for trial, quipped a banking industry observer.
Last bencher
Corporate India has its ways of reminding who the boss is. During a press conference to announce the quarterly earnings, Jindal Steel and Power’s Chairman Naveen Jindal arrived a little later than the rest of the executives. Naveen decided to sit in the last row and signalled to the others to continue. But his presence stiffened up the other board members. He even gave convincing answers when the other board members were caught on thea wrong foot.